Female Surrogate Labor and White Corporeal Debt in Singin’ in the Rain

Abstract

This essay revisits the question of credit and debt in the celebrated 1952 film musical Singin’ in the Rain (dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, US) to show how white women's dancing bodies participate in the “talent relocations” that the movie both thematizes and suppresses. Specifically, it focuses on the relationship between Debbie Reynolds, who was a novice dancer when she was cast in the film, and the two other white women dancers who helped shape Reynolds's filmic body: assistant choreographer Carol Haney and dance-in Jeanne Coyne. Combining feminist and critical race perspectives with production studies, film studies, and dance and performance studies, the essay unites often disconnected gendered and racial analyses of the film by emphasizing the gendered forms of labor and the multiracial genealogies through which dance is reproduced. It also shows how the guise of white credibility enabled Reynolds to conceal her intercorporeal and multiracial debts. Finally, the essay argues that the presence of dancers of color in the film, most notably Rita Moreno, haunts the chains of white corporeal debt that bind Reynolds to Haney and Coyne.